TFIV Rebirth dev thread

[wondersonic]

I'm still conserned about getting the difficulty issue and Stage 2 just right before going onto serious coding for Stage 3

see message hereafter.

, but while I recall:

Firstly, unless you're going to be consistent in using Broken Thunder-quality music, dont use -Take off- version. If you plan on using the whole track in its entirely the ~Original Sound Long Version~ is much better and more fitting to the other tracks.

I've got 2 versions:
- 4:48 from BROKEN THUNDER -project Thunder Force VI- <- my preferred version
- 4:01 from "Technosoft GMC Vol. 10"

I like Kaiser's idea. Hyper Duel, a game made by Technosoft in the same era as TFIV had a visual effect used in a similar manner. Looking at your picture there I think they're pretty much one and the same.... I suspect you already knew this .

I didn't know, I've seen video on youtube though and understand what you are saying and yes that's incredible, they use the same effect

As for the 'unkown enemy', I recall most of the Megadrive games I played that portrayed psychic powers with floating balls. Lightning balls are especially cool.

Hell, even Dr. Eggman had a machine that attacked with floating balls.

Ouch, I don't think I'll use it As Kaiser proposed I'll make a battleship crash rather than showing 'THE enemy'.

You could have enemies (such as the brain-looking thing from TF2 in Stage 1) as an enemy with it's attack being oriented around alternating directions from the balls.

Noted.

Faust used a move in Stage 10 of TF4 with two balls and a bolt of lightning streaming from inbetween them, spreading outwards and inwards, make your own spin on that perhaps.

I see Faust marked you somewhat but I'll probably use an other boss for this 3rd level

[wondersonic]

@BPzeBanshee & Kaiser
Ok, I'll focus on the game balance before starting level 3

@BPzeBanshee
That's great to have video feedback. I remark that the game runs at 60 FPs though. Can't you increase it to 75FPs? (FRAPS can handle up to 100 FPs).

[BPzeBanshee]

Despite fullscreen and compressed textures it runs at approximately 60 FPS (58 most of the time though I dont notice any speed decrease except when using Fraps). I recall it running 75 FPS in the real early versions though. The second number in the brackets after the FPS varies by a lot though, even goes into negative numbers like -3375 sometimes. What's with that?

The one I was referring to is not in either album but in the Lost Technology Plus album.

And I wasnt being sarcastic about the psychic balls idea, that WOULD be really cool, especially for a boss, if you did it right. I was kinda hoping you'd have made a similar approach to the TF III half boss with its tail rather than behaving in the same way, but frankly Stage 2 is hard enough as it is. Got to second phase of last boss before the homing rays killed me off, making progress.

Now, about Faust... I quite like the design of Faust, it's my favourite enemy in TF ignoring the Stage 1 and 2 bosses and its quite a fresh design model from the blocky Gundam mobile suits you generally see all the time. It's probably one of the more creative parts of TF4 and clearly was an influence on Broken Thunder in the form of Mephist.

[wondersonic]

Despite fullscreen and compressed textures it runs at approximately 60 FPS (58 most of the time though I dont notice any speed decrease except when using Fraps). I recall it running 75 FPS in the real early versions though.

I presume you use the windowed mode. If so the frequency is the one configured for the OS. Try to increase it.

The second number in the brackets after the FPS varies by a lot though, even goes into negative numbers like -3375 sometimes. What's with that?

This is the vertical cursor in a vertical scrollable level. Positive and negative values are normal.

The one I was referring to is not in either album but in the Lost Technology Plus album.

Great, I discovered a new version with a different solo and a different finish Thanks. I'll have to get a version with good quality (not a 64KHz one).

And I wasnt being sarcastic about the psychic balls idea, that WOULD be really cool, especially for a boss, if you did it right.

This isdea is cool don't be afraid, I was just refering to the sprite rather than to the moving aspect.

I was kinda hoping you'd have made a similar approach to the TF III half boss with its tail rather than behaving in the same way,

In fact, I prefer as it is. And I admit I thinked about it one whole day before nderstanding how the tail parts move very simply (I've studied joint and inverse kinematic for that ).

but frankly Stage 2 is hard enough as it is. Got to second phase of last boss before the homing rays killed me off, making progress.

The game is not intended to be too easy! I had a bad first experience with TFVI (but in fact this game is great with the good difficulty level).

Now, about Faust... I quite like the design of Faust, it's my favourite enemy in TF ignoring the Stage 1 and 2 bosses and its quite a fresh design model from the blocky Gundam mobile suits you generally see all the time. It's probably one of the more creative parts of TF4 and clearly was an influence on Broken Thunder in the form of Mephist.

Agree with you but since it has been destroyed in TFIV and being so emblematic I wonder if it will come back in this spin-off. With modified colors or with a lot of work sort of refactored? (any volunteer for some pixel-art? )

BTW, externalizing the difficulty related parameters is fun...

[BPzeBanshee]

The only supported one on my machine is 60 Hz, and since it is my mother's computer I dont quite want to change the settings to something unsupported without knowing the exact sideeffects.

I can provide the Lost Technology Plus album if required, it has a lot of cool little treasures from both ports of Thunder Force V. Believe me, I'm pissed at the low-quality versions on the internet (you'd be surprised how hard it is just to get Duel Of Top at 192 Kbps instead of 64).

Of course I dont expect to suddenly see Dr. Eggman as a boss but I do quite like the sprite style used in Strider Returns: Journey From Darkness for its lightning visuals (even though it was poor quality compared to other games in the series).

And of course I dont expect the game to be easy either, but Easy Mode should be exactly that. And for the record I can't beat TF VI either (I got to the last level after many tries and then lost all my continues).

As for Faust, I agree with you on that too. It's blasphemy enough to make distinctly Orn tech into a generic horribly balanced boss (as of time writing, no offense intended), but I cant see Faust as its original form in this game. As Kaiser said at some stage earlier on, Herr Schatten is your man if you just put it across to him for sprite revamping.

[wondersonic]

The only supported one on my machine is 60 Hz, and since it is my mother's computer I dont quite want to change the settings to something unsupported without knowing the exact sideeffects.

You can check the links at the bottom of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refresh_rate

I can provide the Lost Technology Plus album if required, it has a lot of cool little treasures from both ports of Thunder Force V. Believe me, I'm pissed at the low-quality versions on the internet (you'd be surprised how hard it is just to get Duel Of Top at 192 Kbps instead of 64).

Yeah, I know it's hard but not impossible

Of course I dont expect to suddenly see Dr. Eggman as a boss

me neither (but I continue listening expectations).

And of course I dont expect the game to be easy either, but Easy Mode should be exactly that. And for the record I can't beat TF VI either (I got to the last level after many tries and then lost all my continues).

The externalization of parameters is almost finished and allows a very quick parametrization through trial and error. Also I detected some bugs doing that as for the Sever laser not showing its full powers

As for Faust, I agree with you on that too. It's blasphemy enough to make distinctly Orn tech into a generic horribly balanced boss (as of time writing, no offense intended), but I cant see Faust as its original form in this game. As Kaiser said at some stage earlier on, Herr Schatten is your man if you just put it across to him for sprite revamping.

I've seen Herr Schatten work and would be more than happy to work with him. (Herr Schatten, if you read me... )

[BPzeBanshee]

You can check the links at the bottom of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refresh_rate

I already knew this but it tells me the only supported mode is 60 Hz. And the Catalyst Control Centre tells me the same thing. I wont try setting it to anything unsupported.

The externalization of parameters is almost finished and allows a very quick parametrization through trial and error. Also I detected some bugs doing that as for the Sever laser not showing its full powers

Have you put in variables regarding the actual bullets that come from the popcorn enemies? I'm starting to think it's a good idea to go Raiden Fighters style and make those damn things not shoot at a certain close distance from the player, since half the time I get cheapshotted because I'm flying next to one of these things and they suddenly decide to lob a bullet (aside the over 9000 bullets from everyone else).
Just to get the point across, did you know that in its current form this game is actually harder than Thunder Force 4 on Maniac mode? I had some friends over to watch me play this game and then Stage 2 of Thunder Force IV to prove it.

[wondersonic]

Version 0.14 available

Release notes:
General
- added system capabilities info regarding occlusion query and more generally opengl compatibility (1.5 required, to check into out.log)
- externalized parameters controlling difficulty (available to game testers only)
- adjusted some default values to lower game difficulty
Level 1
- reduced spider laser size
- ensured golden asteroids are generated
Level 2
- corrected end of corridors wall "life points"
- corrected Sever weapon
Level 3
- learning how to implement clouds in realtime with opengl
WIP
- implement scoring system for second level (chaining)


Cheers,
WS

[BPzeBanshee]

Just played it now, so far the changes you made have made the game so much more balanced, but there are some key parts that still need tweaking to smoothen the gameplay. I'll get to work on this when I have the spare time.

[BPzeBanshee]

Well I've been playing it a bit today, the existing changes you've done to it have made it MUCH MORE PLAYABLE!

However, there is some issues that even my knowledge of the external variables can't change. Here's a list of what I've got so far?

- Multipliers of health depending on weapon choice. This was non-existant in all of the original Thunder Force games and I fail to see why you've implemented it in here. It only makes it all the more difficult to gauge an enemy's health. On top of that, the way you've made it so that shooting the damn thing with CLAWs is an even worse-off choice than the Sever. So working out which corridors to go through to get the CLAWs purely for wider shooting range is not worth the tradeoff since it's unbalanced. And why is it that its a + of health to CLAWs and x for Sever?

- the Asteroid's cannon. Nothing too wrong with it how it is but you can't shoot through it, as if it were a solid object. Why? Also, I'm interested to see how the stage will change if there is a delay between firing.

- the boss. Stupid deaths occur too often because the hitbox of the homing lasers include the very light bits of the tail. This has to change. Have you noticed the times when you've died because the 'satellites' shoot missiles right inbetween your weapon firing?

- The bullets seem to be difficult to see at times, however I can imagine it'll be too big to avoid if it gets upscaled by the same amount. I'm interested to hear your view on this?

Oh, and something else I noticed about the frame rate of the game. I seemed to get a perfect 75 FPS in the corridors until I got the CLAWs. Then the screen whitening timed out earlier than it did when I played before with the Sever. I couldn't kill the halfboss where I could with Sever (will try again with 0 addition of health with CLAWs later on), and it took me ages to get anywhere with the boss only to have it kill me by the tailend of a homing laser. It reduced slightly more when the Stargate appeared. Not entirely related but switching the level withing game.properties left it on Normal mode by default despite choosing Easy last time I played. A good idea would be to have a default setting in the game.properties for difficulty so that when someone plays again they have the difficulty at the mode they had before (ie. they picked Maniac, then when they start again it shows Maniac rather than whatever it started off with).

[wondersonic]

Well I've been playing it a bit today, the existing changes you've done to it have made it MUCH MORE PLAYABLE!

Fine

However, there is some issues that even my knowledge of the external variables can't change. Here's a list of what I've got so far:

- Multipliers of health depending on weapon choice. This was non-existant in all of the original Thunder Force games and I fail to see why you've implemented it in here. It only makes it all the more difficult to gauge an enemy's health. On top of that, the way you've made it so that shooting the damn thing with CLAWs is an even worse-off choice than the Sever. So working out which corridors to go through to get the CLAWs purely for wider shooting range is not worth the tradeoff since it's unbalanced. And why is it that its a + of health to CLAWs and x for Sever?

I know that ennemies health adjustement based on weapons owned by the player is complex and is a shortcut I employ to adjust mid-boss and boss strength according to the goal: make the game challenging. By shortcut I mean that the real process to do that would be to add to mid-boss / boss:
- new bullet patterns
- new weapons
- new movments
- new "parts" (meaning new arm, pod, shield...)

Considering that it takes a lot of time to add those points, compared to increase life points, I started to do that.

Now the fact that I currently add points if the player owns claws and then I also multiply the life points if the player owns for example the Sever weapon is pure logic:
- the claws give wider attack range
- the claws allow to fire more bullets (x2)

Whereas the Sever is an upgrade of the laser twin shots:
- twin shots: 2 bullets giving 2 x 1 damage point
- Sever laser: increased speed and 6 damage points

If you have claws and Sever (which will occur only starting with the 3rd level), you get a potential 12 damage points per fire (given that the target is large enough) whereas if you have only claws: 2 x 2 = 4 and sever only: 6.

So I add points because claws adds power and I multiply in case of any weapon upgrade since an upgrade is a real multiplication of the player fire power.

You also noticed that getting the claws through the corridors is harder than getting the Sever and it's purposely done since you also get a wider shooting range which really helps in the second part of the level and will also help if getting other weapons.

I really find the claws that powerful because there power apply to all the weapons and (maybe not managed currently) also they provide a kind of shield against ennemies bullets. Finally know that in this spin-off, you may be able to get more than 2 claws

Unless I get more time to enhance mid-boss and boss I think I'll keep these complex calculations to set the health

- the Asteroid's cannon. Nothing too wrong with it how it is but you can't shoot through it, as if it were a solid object. Why?

The laser is pure energy. You've seen the pirats asteroid explode under its power. And since its pods are not protected by the guardian while it's firing,
we can keep the laser as this: "solid"

Also, I'm interested to see how the stage will change if there is a delay between firing.

Hmmm, I don't understand your remark.

- the boss. Stupid deaths occur too often because the hitbox of the homing lasers include the very light bits of the tail. This has to change. Have you noticed the times when you've died because the 'satellites' shoot missiles right inbetween your weapon firing?

Ok for the trail, it's changed. Parts being smaller than 60% of the original size are no more hitable. And yes I've noticed that the missiles remain
challenging because they can avoid twin shots. In fact, I think this is THE hard part of this boss because once you understand how to destroy efficiently the guardian and avoid the big laser there is far less challenges (which is also good for a first boss ).

- The bullets seem to be difficult to see at times, however I can imagine it'll be too big to avoid if it gets upscaled by the same amount. I'm interested to hear your view on this?

Hmmmm, by difficult, you mean too small, too fast or is it a problem of layers? I've asked myself if I would also upscale them but they are maybe too small.

Please answer my question then we can check if upscaling them can be ok.

Oh, and something else I noticed about the frame rate of the game. I seemed to get a perfect 75 FPS in the corridors until I got the CLAWs. Then the screen whitening timed out earlier than it did when I played before with the Sever. I couldn't kill the halfboss where I could with Sever (will try again with 0 addition of health with CLAWs later on), and it took me ages to get anywhere with the boss only to have it kill me by the tailend of a homing laser. It reduced slightly more when the Stargate appeared.

Ok, you are talking about framerate and computer power. I think you've reached the limits here

When you have claws, the number of bullets to check for collision detection is increased. Also the algorithm is different when there are 3D objects (corridors and space portal) thus increasing also CPU consumption (although numerous optimizations have been done). Slowness can give music desynchronization which explain why the whitening (based on music position) occured at a different time: music is not impacted by slow framerate.

I'll think about other remaining optimizations that are hard to implement as of now.

Not entirely related but switching the level withing game.properties left it on Normal mode by default despite choosing Easy last time I played. A good idea would be to have a default setting in the game.properties for difficulty so that when someone plays again they have the difficulty at the mode they had before (ie. they picked Maniac, then when they start again it shows Maniac rather than whatever it started off with).

I see your point. I think this is more related to a coming in the future mini database to keep tracks of player preferences and also high scores. In fact, game.properties is not writable by the application. It can only be edited with an editor and is read at startime once.

[BPzeBanshee]

The laser is pure energy. You've seen the pirats asteroid explode under its power. And since its pods are not protected by the guardian while it's firing,
we can keep the laser as this: "solid"

I was not referring to the Stargate laser, but the one shot by the pirate (you spell 'pirat' wrong by the way) asteroid. By delay I was referring to the non existant time between when the asteroid's laser hits the screen and when it shoots a second one from its position. This laser I would dodge and then find I can't shoot anything in front of me because this thing lets the enemies through and not my laser.

Ok for the trail, it's changed. Parts being smaller than 60% of the original size are no more hitable. And yes I've noticed that the missiles remain
challenging because they can avoid twin shots. In fact, I think this is THE hard part of this boss because once you understand how to destroy efficiently the guardian and avoid the big laser there is far less challenges (which is also good for a first boss ).

They avoid both Twin Shot and Sever because they are spaced the same way, and being hit by them in such a way is what I call a cheap shot. And its not like I can go down to 20% speed and then go to 100% speed to dodge the Stargate laser in time as a strategic solution to this, so it has little to it other than being annoying.

Hmmmm, by difficult, you mean too small, too fast or is it a problem of layers? I've asked myself if I would also upscale them but they are maybe too small.

Please answer my question then we can check if upscaling them can be ok.

TF IV to my knowledge has bullets layered above the enemies that shoot it, see here at about 2:30. I dont think its so much this as the way its being shot, its used carefully in TF 4 in such a way so that there's either 3 bullets at a time coming after you, not a whole wall of it like previous release that was angled directly at you.
To be honest I'm not sure of the specific issue myself, it seems to be just as difficult to see as the pink lasers you previously had for the 'satellites'.

Ok, you are talking about framerate and computer power. I think you've reached the limits here

When you have claws, the number of bullets to check for collision detection is increased. Also the algorithm is different when there are 3D objects (corridors and space portal) thus increasing also CPU consumption (although numerous optimizations have been done). Slowness can give music desynchronization which explain why the whitening (based on music position) occured at a different time: music is not impacted by slow framerate.

I'll think about other remaining optimizations that are hard to implement as of now.

I understand this, but I believe it is something else that is causing frame drops to my PC. I am currently unsure of what it is, as when I mentioned getting 75 FPS before I had a constant 75 FPS most of the time and it still stayed around that area. However the last time I played it was at 58 FPS all the time, till the boss where for some reason it got a frameskippy 62.

I know that ennemies health adjustement based on weapons owned by the player is complex and is a shortcut I employ to adjust mid-boss and boss strength according to the goal: make the game challenging. By shortcut I mean that the real process to do that would be to add to mid-boss / boss:
- new bullet patterns
- new weapons
- new movments
- new "parts" (meaning new arm, pod, shield...)

Considering that it takes a lot of time to add those points, compared to increase life points, I started to do that.

Now the fact that I currently add points if the player owns claws and then I also multiply the life points if the player owns for example the Sever weapon is pure logic:
- the claws give wider attack range
- the claws allow to fire more bullets (x2)

Whereas the Sever is an upgrade of the laser twin shots:
- twin shots: 2 bullets giving 2 x 1 damage point
- Sever laser: increased speed and 6 damage points

If you have claws and Sever (which will occur only starting with the 3rd level), you get a potential 12 damage points per fire (given that the target is large enough) whereas if you have only claws: 2 x 2 = 4 and sever only: 6.

So I add points because claws adds power and I multiply in case of any weapon upgrade since an upgrade is a real multiplication of the player fire power.

You also noticed that getting the claws through the corridors is harder than getting the Sever and it's purposely done since you also get a wider shooting range which really helps in the second part of the level and will also help if getting other weapons.

I really find the claws that powerful because there power apply to all the weapons and (maybe not managed currently) also they provide a kind of shield against ennemies bullets. Finally know that in this spin-off, you may be able to get more than 2 claws

Unless I get more time to enhance mid-boss and boss I think I'll keep these complex calculations to set the health

This is not Technosoft convention, the weapon system and key timing of the upgrades are for one purpose - get the advantage over the enemy. TF 3 did this wrong and had enemies with too few health, TF 4 on the other hand did it right. The only thing it had that was close to this level of hidden crap was the amount of damage that one weapon did was variable to whatever bosses. You'll notice that the Gargoylediver takes something like ten minutes to kill off with Blade versus two minutes max with Double Shot, for example.
The Claws are actually not powerful enough - they're supposed to do damage to enemies when in contact with them as well as eat up bullets. And they're not and never were equal in upgrade to another weapon, they weren't made that way. The wider range is only useful for particular circumstances like the popcorn enemies, but really do not help enough to reason for the extra health that the enemies gain especially since the Sever alone does more damage than Double Show and CRAW combined. Without modifying the variables now wondersonic, I can totally flog the Guardian boss with the Sever before he even get the chance to shoot those damned homing lasers. CLAWs on the other hand give all the satellites boosted health so Im wasting five minutes picking those off to avoid them cheapshotting me, and then when I get the boss itself to its next phase the Homing Lasers kill me. The bulk of the power came from the Double Shot, not the CLAWs as they are currently implemented.

In short, I completely disagree with this healthboosting idea, its nothing like Thunder Force was and I only see factors like these in something like a Raizing game with a complex weapon upgrade and rank difficulty system.

[wondersonic]

The laser is pure energy. You've seen the pirats asteroid explode under its power. And since its pods are not protected by the guardian while it's firing,
we can keep the laser as this: "solid"

I was not referring to the Stargate laser, but the one shot by the pirate (you spell 'pirat' wrong by the way) asteroid. By delay I was referring to the non existant time between when the asteroid's laser hits the screen and when it shoots a second one from its position. This laser I would dodge and then find I can't shoot anything in front of me because this thing lets the enemies through and not my laser.

Pirat[s] => Pirate[s] [OK]

In the air-raid level of TFIV, ships (in frontground) are shooting at you. In maniac mode, you can see your bullets stopped by the ennemies bullets although ennemies are flying through => same behaviour => no change.

Moreover, this is a pursuit and there is no reason for the asteroids to stop shooting. I can understand however that some delay may be interesting for the easy level => added new parameter for v0.15

Note that the only reason why there isn't more asteroids laser present at the same time on screen is because of performance degradation.

Ok for the trail, it's changed. Parts being smaller than 60% of the original size are no more hitable. And yes I've noticed that the missiles remain
challenging because they can avoid twin shots. In fact, I think this is THE hard part of this boss because once you understand how to destroy efficiently the guardian and avoid the big laser there is far less challenges (which is also good for a first boss ).

They avoid both Twin Shot and Sever because they are spaced the same way, and being hit by them in such a way is what I call a cheap shot. And its not like I can go down to 20% speed and then go to 100% speed to dodge the Stargate laser in time as a strategic solution to this, so it has little to it other than being annoying.

I can beat the boss also with twin shot only (no claws nor sever) without problem at 100% speed and I'm sure you can do it also
Note that I can't let the boss without defense To void missiles move and move again...

Hmmmm, by difficult, you mean too small, too fast or is it a problem of layers? I've asked myself if I would also upscale them but they are maybe too small.

Please answer my question then we can check if upscaling them can be ok.

TF IV to my knowledge has bullets layered above the enemies that shoot it, see here at about 2:30. I dont think its so much this as the way its being shot, its used carefully in TF 4 in such a way so that there's either 3 bullets at a time coming after you, not a whole wall of it like previous release that was angled directly at you.
To be honest I'm not sure of the specific issue myself, it seems to be just as difficult to see as the pink lasers you previously had for the 'satellites'.

Indeed, you were right regarding layers. I don't know why I did that. I've corrected this for both bullets and missiles => upper layer (known as 'ennemies bullets layer').

Ok, you are talking about framerate and computer power. I think you've reached the limits here

When you have claws, the number of bullets to check for collision detection is increased. Also the algorithm is different when there are 3D objects (corridors and space portal) thus increasing also CPU consumption (although numerous optimizations have been done). Slowness can give music desynchronization which explain why the whitening (based on music position) occured at a different time: music is not impacted by slow framerate.

I'll think about other remaining optimizations that are hard to implement as of now.

I understand this, but I believe it is something else that is causing frame drops to my PC. I am currently unsure of what it is, as when I mentioned getting 75 FPS before I had a constant 75 FPS most of the time and it still stayed around that area. However the last time I played it was at 58 FPS all the time, till the boss where for some reason it got a frameskippy 62.

Hmmm, I don't have any idea about it. Performance is important but here I would need to profile it with tools. Can you tell me more about your hardware?
video card, agp/pci express bus, video memory cpu speed also...

I know that ennemies health adjustement based on weapons owned by the player is complex and is a shortcut I employ to adjust mid-boss and boss strength according to the goal: make the game challenging. By shortcut I mean that the real process to do that would be to add to mid-boss / boss:
- new bullet patterns
- new weapons
- new movments
- new "parts" (meaning new arm, pod, shield...)

Considering that it takes a lot of time to add those points, compared to increase life points, I started to do that.

Now the fact that I currently add points if the player owns claws and then I also multiply the life points if the player owns for example the Sever weapon is pure logic:
- the claws give wider attack range
- the claws allow to fire more bullets (x2)

Whereas the Sever is an upgrade of the laser twin shots:
- twin shots: 2 bullets giving 2 x 1 damage point
- Sever laser: increased speed and 6 damage points

If you have claws and Sever (which will occur only starting with the 3rd level), you get a potential 12 damage points per fire (given that the target is large enough) whereas if you have only claws: 2 x 2 = 4 and sever only: 6.

So I add points because claws adds power and I multiply in case of any weapon upgrade since an upgrade is a real multiplication of the player fire power.

You also noticed that getting the claws through the corridors is harder than getting the Sever and it's purposely done since you also get a wider shooting range which really helps in the second part of the level and will also help if getting other weapons.

I really find the claws that powerful because there power apply to all the weapons and (maybe not managed currently) also they provide a kind of shield against ennemies bullets. Finally know that in this spin-off, you may be able to get more than 2 claws

Unless I get more time to enhance mid-boss and boss I think I'll keep these complex calculations to set the health

This is not Technosoft convention, the weapon system and key timing of the upgrades are for one purpose - get the advantage over the enemy.

Agree.

TF 3 did this wrong and had enemies with too few health, TF 4 on the other hand did it right. The only thing it had that was close to this level of hidden crap was the amount of damage that one weapon did was variable to whatever bosses. You'll notice that the Gargoylediver takes something like ten minutes to kill off with Blade versus two minutes max with Double Shot, for example.

I think this is because of collision issues.

The Claws are actually not powerful enough - they're supposed to do damage to enemies when in contact with them as well as eat up bullets.

Damage ennemies? I can't check it right now, but I'm not really sure about it (for TFIV at least).

And they're not and never were equal in upgrade to another weapon, they weren't made that way. The wider range is only useful for particular circumstances like the popcorn enemies, but really do not help enough to reason for the extra health that the enemies gain especially since the Sever alone does more damage than Twin Shot and CRAW combined. Without modifying the variables now wondersonic, I can totally flog the Guardian boss with the Sever before he even get the chance to shoot those damned homing lasers. CLAWs on the other hand give all the satellites boosted health so Im wasting five minutes picking those off to avoid them cheapshotting me, and then when I get the boss itself to its next phase the Homing Lasers kill me. The bulk of the power came from the Twin Shot, not the CLAWs as they are currently implemented.

Just for me to understand, won't some twin shot bullets hit both guardian *and* satellites if positioned correctly if you have the claws?

In short, I completely disagree with this healthboosting idea, its nothing like Thunder Force was and I only see factors like these in something like a Raizing game with a complex weapon upgrade and rank difficulty system.

So far, I've learn a lesson. Balancing is required but should be done correctly. If you (not only BPzeBanshee) are agree, I think I'll follow this direction:
- ennemies health can change only based on difficulty level not regarding the weapons available to the player
- to make the game more challenging according to player weapons, only "addons" are allowed: new bullet pattern, new weapons, new ennemies...

It's somewhat hard to explain for me but for TFIV, the first boss has new bullet patterns in maniac mode (huge water bullets as well as normal bullets),
in the desert level, there are some blue shaped triangles appearing and the boss of this level has new bullet pattern also.

Please provide feedback as well (as I'm a little tired to work on this level since 4 months now ).

[wondersonic]

@BpZeBanshee
Oh and if you have finalized the values of the parameters for first level, let me know so that I can update the code. (same thing for the second level but I think you'll maybe have some tests to perform).

BTW, to mimic the non health adjustment of snake, satellites and boss, set to 0 for claws add and 1 for sever multiplier.

Regarding, the music for 3rd level, I'm kind of not decided yet. The long version (Lost technology plus) of Steel of destiny is great (new guitar sounds) however I also like (guitar sound is sort of pure, clearer) the version I have (very close in duration, solo, intro, finish).
Know that I'm currently listening several times per day the 2 versions one after the other

[BPzeBanshee]

Oh and if you have finalized the values of the parameters for first level, let me know so that I can update the code. (same thing for the second level but I think you'll maybe have some tests to perform).

I actually haven't changed any variables so far, though I have thought about a few changes in particular relating to the angle of the Stargate laser by difficulty and whatever the hell the variables are relating to the homing laser.

In the air-raid level of TFIV, ships (in frontground) are shooting at you. In maniac mode, you can see your bullets stopped by the ennemies bullets although ennemies are flying through => same behaviour => no change.

So it's intended then. Fair enough. If you implement the full weapon system for Styx remember that Wave and Hunter passes through everything including such forms.

I can beat the boss also with twin shot only (no claws nor sever) without problem at 100% speed and I'm sure you can do it also
Note that I can't let the boss without defense To void missiles move and move again...

I dont mean to have it be stupidly easy like TF III but Easy Mode should be for the first few stages exactly that. The difficulty should be a collaboration of factors, not just one single annoying weapon. I'm still trying to figure out how to balance the phases for the homing lasers.

Damage ennemies? I can't check it right now, but I'm not really sure about it (for TFIV at least).

I can vouch that it does. As a physical entity right from TF II to IV it damages enemies when in contact, in the case of popcorn enemies it should kill them off instantly. I think this is removed in TF V, but is implemented again in TF VI (not so confident about VI though). In fact TF II's CLAWs actually rotated faster when getting a third CLAW upgrade (as getting one gets you one orb, get another = second orb) specifically as a more efficient protection against kamikaze enemies and bullets.

Just for me to understand, won't some twin shot bullets hit both guardian *and* satellites if positioned correctly if you have the claws?

I'm fairly certain if you're sitting under the Guardian whether x-position be equal to or nonequal to the Guardian you hit it with some doubleshot bullets while aiming at the satellites with the main weapon itself. It's really irrelevant considering the health gets boosted to nullify this sort of damage anyway.

So far, I've learn a lesson. Balancing is required but should be done correctly. If you (not only BPzeBanshee) are agree, I think I'll follow this direction:
- ennemies health can change only based on difficulty level not regarding the weapons available to the player
- to make the game more challenging according to player weapons, only "addons" are allowed: new bullet pattern, new weapons, new ennemies...

It's somewhat hard to explain for me but for TFIV, the first boss has new bullet patterns in maniac mode (huge water bullets as well as normal bullets),
in the desert level, there are some blue shaped triangles appearing and the boss of this level has new bullet pattern also.

Now THIS is more like Technosoft convention. I'm glad you understand.
To be specific, Gargoylediver shot out a spray of something like 10 red-tinted bullets, the huge water ones appeared on Normal mode and upward. And in Stage 2 on Maniac when you selected that as first stage you versed ANOTHER subboss on top of the one halfway though the stage instantly.

On some other notes, here is a MP3 conversion of a Steel of Destiny MIDI that someone did (they did the MIDI and MP3 conversion themselves, not sure who exactly). It's done as it is in the PS1/Saturn version but it is quite a lot better in quality with the instruments while the guitar is a bit different again. Maybe this may change your mind again.
Also I may not be able to quite help as much as I have been for a little while as school stuff's wrapping up and I've got computer problems (the legacy machine pretty much ate everything on my USB today).

[BPzeBanshee]

Some things I've noticed in the time I've had spare:

1. Styx in TF4R may contain a stretched version of the TF4 sprite but it certainly doesn't use the TF4 style of graphical weaponry or speed form. Have a look at this video and you'll see what I mean. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this.

2. Styx with 1.0x and +0 multipliers regarding health make it easy to finish the boss with Sever. It is a strong weapon and so we don't want it to exactly be overpowered but at the same time it shouldn't be too difficult to render the thing useless, especially keeping the Double Shot in mind. I believe that this is the only balance issue that remains for Normal mode seems to be just fine as you have set it to without the health-additions crap.

[Makoto Sei]

Ho~~~~.....looks busy here...

[BPzeBanshee]

Nice one with the sarcasm.

At the moment I'm working on a few other things myself, real-life stuff but I also have a little TF-related things going on as well. When Wondersonic finally gets around to making v0.15 with said gameplay fixes things will kick up again as I pull the latest changes to pieces.

@Wondersonic:

My legacy machine won't run TF4R properly anymore since I had to reinstall Windows XP. The music is fastforwarded like 200x speed and frame rate is really dodgy and jumpy.
It never exactly ran the game too well to begin with but at least the framerate was stable, now it's impossible to play.

In short, this game just bumped up a fair new notches for its System Requirements.

[Makoto Sei]

eh ? me being sarcasm ?
I`m sorry, i didn`t meant being that....but really, seeing feedback between you two is interesting. I mean, there`s fascinating side, aside from playing the game it self...while i`m here could doing nothing T-T

[BPzeBanshee]

No worries man, I only had a laugh at the potential take of sarcasm because there was nothing new going on for the last week.

You're more than welcome to participate in discussion regarding the state of the game and use of shmup conventions, as is everyone. It's as much a learning curve for me as for everyone else (I had no idea about coding for Bash Linux till I decided to do something about TF4R's dodgy script files for example). After all, this is what the Development forum is essentially for right?

[wondersonic]

Hi there, know that I just don't had time to work this past month but I'm always thinking about it.
I'll very soon migrate the code to use LWJGL 2.6 and I'll maybe refactor the current code (I'm not happy the way it is currently).

Moreover, I'm thinking about the way it is disributed. Would you prefer an applet or some JNLP application instead?

Bye for now,
WS

PS: I'll answer the previous unanswered posts asap

[Alec44]

Hey wondersonic, don't give up !!!

[BPzeBanshee]

Hi there, know that I just don't had time to work this past month but I'm always thinking about it.
I'll very soon migrate the code to use LWJGL 2.6 and I'll maybe refactor the current code (I'm not happy the way it is currently).

Moreover, I'm thinking about the way it is disributed. Would you prefer an applet or some JNLP application instead?

Bye for now,
WS

PS: I'll answer the previous unanswered posts asap

Hey man! I was just starting to think you got hacked and murdered or something?

On your question, Im not entirely certain. While the idea of having it run from a webpage (I presume that's what JNLP is from a Google Search, correct me if I'm wrong), it doesnt seem entirely plausible in terms of resources. Its probably for the best if you focused on getting it working just as a standalone applet before you try anything extra-fancy like that.

Also, why did you remove the downloads from Google Code? That'll only stop people from being able to test it in its current form before this big change you're talking about.

[Makoto Sei]

Working the game by yourself i sure a difficult thing, so i can understand if it very long time to achieve, and i believe you also have another thing to be done aside from your game. I believe there more people hat can always wait for your work, so....cheers

[wondersonic]

Working the game by yourself i sure a difficult thing, so i can understand if it very long time to achieve, and i believe you also have another thing to be done aside from your game. I believe there more people hat can always wait for your work, so....cheers

Thanks!

It goes (very) slowly but surely.

[wondersonic]

Hi there, know that I just don't had time to work this past month but I'm always thinking about it.
I'll very soon migrate the code to use LWJGL 2.6 and I'll maybe refactor the current code (I'm not happy the way it is currently).

Moreover, I'm thinking about the way it is disributed. Would you prefer an applet or some JNLP application instead?

Bye for now,
WS

PS: I'll answer the previous unanswered posts asap

Hey man! I was just starting to think you got hacked and murdered or something?

On your question, Im not entirely certain. While the idea of having it run from a webpage (I presume that's what JNLP is from a Google Search, correct me if I'm wrong), it doesnt seem entirely plausible in terms of resources. Its probably for the best if you focused on getting it working just as a standalone applet before you try anything extra-fancy like that.

Also, why did you remove the downloads from Google Code? That'll only stop people from being able to test it in its current form before this big change you're talking about.

I know about the google code modifications. Well apart some click errors (that errased the wiki and svn repository) I've decided to also clean the download area for the incoming big changes.

Currently I'm just wondering if I'll not propose a big zip file containing all the ressources (graphics, musics, exe) although it would be big it would remove the problems related to auto-downloaded game packages (that went wrong for some users).

Note: I've studied JNLP and applet and because of the restrictions I'll not use these technologies.

[BPzeBanshee]

That could work. Maybe do what Alluro does with Xeno Fighters and make it so the music can be a separate download. That way the program and graphics are packed in one medium-sized download music would be in another. This could work for those who have issues downloading large files at once.
Or just put it in one file, easier for me.

I believe I got someone that may be interested in contributing to the project in terms of ideas too - he posted on my Impossible Games demonstration video of TF4R and we've been having a conversation on the page for the last few days.

[wondersonic]

That could work. Maybe do what Alluro does with Xeno Fighters and make it so the music can be a separate download. That way the program and graphics are packed in one medium-sized download music would be in another. This could work for those who have issues downloading large files at once.
Or just put it in one file, easier for me.

I think one big file will be my way (I'll have to work on reducing the data where possible).

I believe I got someone that may be interested in contributing to the project in terms of ideas too - he posted on my Impossible Games demonstration video of TF4R and we've been having a conversation on the page for the last few days.

I've seen it. Well, if you want you may talk about the detailed scenario here. BTW, I've listened your version of Steel of Destiny this whole past month and mine (the one from broken thunder). And yesterday I get my answer: your version seems to have a synthetic guitar (understand this is a sample used by a keyboard with a lot of effects) while mine is much more guitar like. Thus I'll choose my version (which is also 5 seconds longer).

[BPzeBanshee]

BTW, I've listened your version of Steel of Destiny this whole past month and mine (the one from broken thunder). And yesterday I get my answer: your version seems to have a synthetic guitar (understand this is a sample used by a keyboard with a lot of effects) while mine is much more guitar like. Thus I'll choose my version (which is also 5 seconds longer).

If you're referring to the second Steel of Destiny I sent you, it was indeed based off of a MIDI and synthesised somehow (I didnt make it, dunno who did). The first one was how it was meant to sound, like all TF5-era music (this is including Hyakutaro Tsukumo's music remixes he did in Technosoft albums made around this time). Honestly though I thought we were trying to keep with the ol' school feel.

Also, for future stages you're welcome to make use of my TF remixes (I've only done Knights of Legend and A Ray Of Hope so far, I plan on doing more) for the project, just make sure there's credits for me in somewhere eventually.

[wondersonic]

Phew a lot of work "just for that":



Start of level 3 ("Chaos"): a blue bright sky with great looking sun...

Now the clouds...